Overnight

One evening it's foggy, wet, humid, warm. The next morning it's clear, dry, cool. The on/off switch between summer and fall has flipped overnight.

Not that there won't be warm days ahead. Hurricane season isn't finished, for example. But this was the magical moment when the grasshopper starts to panic, when shorts and tees are worn not for comfort but in defiance, when one concedes to a new world by putting an extra blanket on the bed (but not turning up the thermostat, oh no, not yet allowed).

In Maine that moment used to happen in late August. It seems to get later and later; we're halfway through September now, and the end of official summer is almost here when Canada finally flips the switch, and that makes us more like Connecticut, or even New Jersey. I'm attributing this assault on our character to climate change, or more precisely and less controversially, to more hot air blowing up from the south. Any allusion to Washington, D.C. is purely geographical.

Whatever the cause or the circumstance, today one feels that overwhelming blend of excitement at the purity of the season, and of anxiety (well, not really anxiety, more annoyance) at the idea of sleet and snow and cold in the future. Silly ant, to worry about what's not here, and won't be here for a long time.

However, it is also perfect weather to go out and replenish the woodpile.